Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Stardate 9522.6: A colossal explosion on the Klingon moon Praxis sends intense shock waves through space, which are encountered by the USS Excelsior in its third year of duty under Captain Sulu. The Excelsior is damaged by the leading edge of the energy burst, but regains her balance. When offered assistance, the Klingons tell Sulu to mind his own business and stay out of their territory. Later, on Earth, the command crew of the Enterprise is invited to a top priority, high-security briefing at Starfleet Headquarters, where it is revealed that one of the Kligons’ main sources of power, located on Praxis, released radiation that will eat away the Klingon homeworld’s ozone layer in roughly fifty years, and the Klingons, whose economy is devoted entirely to military development, are unable to combat the deterioration of their planet without aid. Spock, acting as an ambassador, has opened the door for discussions with Chancellor Gorkon of the Klingon High Council, and has taken the liberty of volunteering Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise – both of which are three months away from mandatory retirement as Starfleet prepares to decommission the ship itself – for the duty of escorting Gorkon and his party to the first Federation-Klingon peace talks.
Over dinner on the Enterprise, the Klingons and the Starfleet officers seem to be unable to avoid eventually insulting or offending each other, and General Chang seems more interested in Kirk’s reputation as a warrior than in peace. The Klingons return to their ship, and shortly afterward, torpedoes from the Enterprise’s direction pummel Gorkon’s ship, and two figures in Federation spacesuits beam aboard and kill the Chancellor and many of the Klingon crew. Still unsure of what has happened – Scotty finds that none of the Enterprise’s torpedoes have been fired – Kirk surrenders when Chang threatens to fire on the Enterprise point-blank. Kirk and McCoy beam over, where McCoy tries to save the dying Gorkon, but with Federation medicine’s limited knowledge of Klingon anatomy, McCoy cannot prevent Gorkon’s death. Kirk and McCoy are arrested and given a trial where Chang’s unusual evidence – including entries from Kirk’s personal log stating his distrust of Klingons since they killed his son – insinuates that Kirk was behind the assassination. Kirk and McCoy are sentenced to work for the rest of their lives in the dilithium mines on Rura Penthe.
At Spock’s command, the Enterprise conveniently develops a malfunction that prevents them from receiving Starfleet’s order to return home while the crew searches for the equipment used by the two Starfleet officers who assassinated Gorkon. A few leads appear, but then are revealed to be false alarms – someone is deliberately trying to lead the investigation off track. In the meantime, Kirk and McCoy fight for their lives on Rura Penthe but are helped by exotic fellow prisoner Martia, who warns Kirk that even in the penal colony, there is a price on his head. Martia helps them escape, hoping that Kirk, who she says is the most attractive prisoner to appear in a long time, will repay her somehow. During their escape, Martia is revealed to be a shapeshifter, and perhaps not even a true female. Kirk realizes that the escape has been too easy and that Martia is the one out for he and McCoy. Martia changes into a copy of Kirk, but when the prison guards catch up, Kirk tricks them into shooting Martia instead.
Bluffing their way past Klingon border guards, the Enterprise crew beams Kirk and McCoy up just before the two would have been executed. After returning to the Enterprise, Kirk and the others discover two dead crewmen – the assassins – and realize that there is one more conspirator. Kirk suggests laying a trap by announcing to the crew that the dead crewmen are alive and in sick bay awaiting the court reporter, which would lure the culprit to sick bay to kill the two crewmen before they could talk. The ploy works, and the conspirator is Lt. Valeris, Spock’s trusted protege’. Spock forces a mind-meld with Valeris to find out who the main conspirators are, and discovers that Klingons and a member of the Federation top brass are already cooperating peacefully – to ensure that peace is destroyed by the assassination of the President of the Federation.
Kirk contacts Captain Sulu, and their two ships head for Khitomer to save the President and reveal the conspirators, but time – and Chang’s prototype Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked (the real source of the attack on Gorkon’s ship) – are against their efforts to save the negotiations.
screenplay by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn
story by Leonard Nimoy and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal
directed by Nicholas Meyer
music by Cliff EidelmanCast: William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), James Doohan (Scotty), George Takei (Captain Sulu), Walter Koenig (Chekov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Kim Cattrall (Valeris), Mark Lenard (Sarek), Grace Lee Whitney (Excelsior Communications Officer), Brock Peters (Admiral Cartwright), Leon Russom (Chief in Command), Kurtwood Smith (Federation President), Christopher Plummer (Chang), Rosanna DeSoto (Azetbur), David Warner (Chancellor Gorkon), John Schuck (Klingon Ambassador), Michael Dorn (Klingon Defense Attorney), Paul Rossilli (Kerla), Robert Easton (Klingon Judge), Clifford Shegog (Klingon Officer), W. Morgan Sheppard (Klingon Commander), Brett Porter (General Stex), Jeremy Roberts (Excelsior Officer), Michael Bofshever (Excelsior Engineer), Angelo Tiffe (Excelsior Navigator), Boris Lee Krutonog (Helsman Lojur), Christian Slater (Excelsior Communications Officer), Iman (Martia), Tom Morga (The Brute), Todd Bryant (Klingon Translator), John Bloom (Behemoth Alien), Jim Beoke (First Klingon General), Carlos Cestero (Munitions Man), Edward Clements (Young Crewman), Katie Jane Johnston (Martia as a Child), Douglas Engalla (Prisoner at Rura Penthe), Matthias Hues (Second Klingon General), Darryl Henriques (Nanclus), David Drance (Sleepy Klingon), Judy Levitt (Military Aide), Shakti (ADC), Michael Snyder (Crewman Dax), Rene Auberjonois (Colonel West – home video release only)
Notes: Although Next Generation was approaching its second season when Trek V was made, the film ignored the TV series (aside from using several barely-redressed sets). However, in Trek VI, many Next Generation connections were present: a Klingon defense attorney (Michael Dorn) is briefly identified as Colonel Worf, the grandfather of the Enterprise-D’s security chief; Khitomer is the site of the 24th century Romulan attack on a Klingon colony, killing Lt. Worf’s parents in Next Generation lore. Events in this movie happen at least 3 years after Trek V, as Sulu states that he has commanded Excelsior for 3 years – though some reports place Trek VI 10 to 15 years later than Trek V, which would better account for the crew’s signs of age. The events in Trek VI were mentioned briefly in the Next Generation two-parter Unification, in which it is mentioned that Spock met Romulan Senator Pardek at the Khitomer Conference. Also, some time after Trek VI and the 23rd century scenes of Generations, Scotty, aboard a transport ship, encounters the enormous alien device which causes him to attempt a last-ditch maneuver to save his life, as told in the Relics episode of Next Generation.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
The crew of the third American moon landing mission prepares for their flight early in 1970. At the last minute, command module pilot Ken Mattingly is declared unfit for flight due to possible exposure to the measles, and mission commander Jim Lovell can either make the flight with the backup pilot, Jack Swigert, or risk his entire crew being pushed back to a later flight. Lovell decides to replace Mattingly with Swigert, and even though Swigert has had less training time, he’s determined to make it a good flight. The launch goes off smoothly, and Apollo 13 is en route to the moon. But during a routine procedure, a huge explosion rips through the service module of the isolated spacecraft, draining the vital oxygen needed not only for consumption by the astronauts, but to provide electricity for the attached command module. Lovell, Haise and Swigert evacuate to the relatively tiny lunar module, which is meant to sustain only two men for less than a day – but they now face a journey of several days to return to Earth, during which they will have to shut down both the lunar lander and what’s left of the command module to preserve power. The three astronauts and their hundreds of landlocked flight controllers – including Ken Mattingly, who is most assuredly healthy and puts all of his effort into exploring possible survival solutions for his former crewmates – are focusing their energies on bringing Apollo 13 home. But time, physics, and the odds are all against them.
Gregory Stark has problems. The Portland executive has lost his keys – and someone’s blackmailing him out of millions of dollars. To solve both cases, which he believes are connected, he hires the world’s foremost private investigator, Darryl Zero. Zero is a reclusive enigma, seldom (if ever) venturing outside of his heavily-protected home, and interacting with his clients through his confidant, Steve Arlo. But in this case, Zero has to interact with the real world, leaving L.A. to travel up the Pacific coast looking for clues. As it turns out, Stark doesn’t just have troubles – he is trouble. And Darryl Zero faces the worst possible obstacle to his legendary detachment from the rest of the human race: he’s falling in love with the chief suspect.
Time-lagged super-spy Austin Powers is astonished to discover that his beautiful bride is, in fact, one of Dr. Evil’s fem-bots. And that isn’t the only trick up the evil genius’ sleeve – he has constructed a time machine so he can travel back to the late 60s, steal Austin’s mojo, and place an enormous laser on the moon which will put the entire world in his command, under threat of a powerful blast from orbit. (Why he couldn’t simply do this in 1999 is…well…a matter for another movie.) Austin must also return to the 60s, recover his mojo, and stop Dr. Evil and the diabolically diminutive Mini-Me from taking over the world (and if the opportunity presents itself for a quick round of shagging, Austin won’t hesitate to do that either).
Widower Michael Faraday raises his young son and teaches a univeristy class on American militia, separatist and terrorist groups. His fascination with this subject has blossomed into an obsession since bungled orders cost his wife – an FBI agent – her life. Faraday is driving home one day when he spots a young boy with a horribly burned and bleeding hand. He drives the boy to the hospital and discovers that the child’s parents are his neighbors across the street – a family to whom he has never introduced himself. His neighbor, Oliver Lang, is grateful to Faraday, and the two become fast friends (as do their sons). But Faraday, who has become accustomed to subjecting everyone and everything he knows to extreme scrutiny, is a little unsettled by some of Oliver’s off-the-cuff remarks. Faraday begins to suspect that Oliver is not what he seems…and when he finds that “Oliver Lang” is the name of a dead man from his neighbor’s home town, it begins to appear as though his suspicions aren’t as groundless as everyone tells him they are.
A seemingly typical Thursday throws Englishman Arthur Dent for a loop as he witnesses the destruction, in rapid succession, of his house and then the entire world. That he witnesses the latter event instead of being caught up in it is solely thanks to the intervention of his quirky friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien in disguise, researching Earth for a publication known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. After escaping Earth’s demise, Ford and a dazed Arthur wind up aboard the stolen starship Heart Of Gold, whose captain, Zaphod Beeblebrox, is out of both of his minds. But Arthur is also reunited with Tricia McMillan, the only other surviving human being, and reminds her that she once turned down his advances in favor of an incognito Zaphod at a party on Earth. Soon, the Heart Of Gold is being pursued not only by a Vogon fleet trying to recover both the ship and Zaphod, but also by Humma Kavula, the candidate who Zaphod beat out for the presidency of the galaxy. Tricia is captured by the Vogons on a planet to which Kavula diverts the Heart Of Gold, and Arthur sets out to rescue her, even if he can’t necessarily win her heart in the attempt.
Notes: The original Marvin suit from the 1981 BBC TV series makes a quite visible appearance in the office queue on Vogsphere. Similarly, Simon Jones, the TV series’ Arthur Dent, appears as the cheerfully threatening (and honest-to-Zarquon anaglyphic) “answering machine” spokesbeing who threatens to destroy anyone approaching Magrathea.
The face of Douglas Adams can be seen prominently in two scenes; his face is one of the custom worlds under construction in the Magrathean planet-building yards, and his face is also the last thing into which the Infinite Improbability Drive morphs the Heart of Gold before the end credits. Adams’ family, including his wife, are among the panicked London crowds glimpsed briefly before the world ends.
Young billionaire Bruce Wayne, traumatized by the murder of his parents, wanders the world attempting to find some purpose to his life. After being directed to the mountaintop retreat of Ra’s Al Ghul, Wayne seems to find some peace with his past. But Wayne is unable to join Ra’s Al Ghul in his quest to topple civilization and he, instead, tears down Al Ghul’s retreat and returns to his home in Gotham City to become its protector. He takes on the mantle of Batman and aligns himself with Jim Gordon, one of the few uncorrupted officers on the Gotham Police Force. But just as he begins to do some good, Ra’s Al Ghul comes back into his life, questioning whether he has chosen the right side for which to fight…
At a U.S. military desert base in Qatar, a helicopter reported shot down in Afghanistan mysteriously appears. Ordered to land, the chopper suddenly morphs into a gigantic robot and proceeds to hack into the military network, which is quickly cut off by the soldiers. Enraged, the ‘bot destroys the rest of the base and deploys a giant robotic scorpion to kill a small group of surviving solders, led by Capt. Lennox.
The King Of Kong is a serious documentary about two men’s battle for, and the ensuing controversy surrounding, the world’s highest 
In August 2010, Wikus Van De Merwe’s life changes forever. He is chosen to head up the effort by MNU to relocate a population of aliens to a new settlement. Since their ship appeared in 1982 in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa, the aliens – generally known by the racial slur “prawn” – have been corraled into an inner city ghetto known as District 9. Johannesburg’s human residents have finally railed against the aliens enough that a very expensive and very risky resettlement has been undertaken. During the search of one alien residence in District 9, Wikus is exposed to some sort of seemingly makeshift biological weapon. Initially it only makes him nauseous, but within 36 hours of his exposure, he’s no longer entirely human. This is of particular interest to MNU, which is also one of the world’s largest arms dealers, and has long been frustrated by the inability of any human to use the aliens’ advanced weaponry. Wikus demonstrates – under duress – that he is the first human who can activate the aliens’ weapons. This makes him a hot property at MNU – though his employers now want to dissect him so they can corner the market on alien weapons, even if it means genetically re-engineering those who will wield them. Wikus is left with no choice but to escape, and now the only place where he has any hope of hiding is District 9 itself…but neither fully human nor fully alien, friends and allies will be hard to come by.
At the end of the 22nd century, planet Earth has been laid to waste by decades of radioactive planet bombs launched by the all-conquering Gamilas. The surviving human population has resorted to elaborate underground cities to survive, but the radiation will soon reach a point beyond which the surface of the Earth cannot protect them. All life on Earth is doomed.
Jessica Marlowe arrives at space station Omega 76 to begin a tour of duty as the station’s second-in-command under uptight Captain Glenn, whose previous second-in-command left under mysterious (and much-gossiped-about) circumstances. She meets the station’s other personnel and spouses in rapid succession, including Ted and his wife Misty, the latter of whom has an oddly distant relationship with both her husband and their daughter, and Steve and Donna, both eager to move on to a better posting than Omega 76. Jessica, unable to have children of her own, quickly befriends Ted and his daughter, as Misty grows jealous of her presence. Glenn continually questions Jessica’s fitness for duty and her every suggestion, until she realizes that his relationship with her predecessor was more than just professional. She finds that her feelings for one of her new crewmates is entering that territory as well.
Victor Togunde (James), Jonny Jay (Trucker), Mike Stoyanov (Dr. Bot), Susan Currie (Steve’s Mom), Hart Keathley (Donna’s Baby), Anna Sophie Burglund (Star Angel), Sam Pancake (Saul), Katherine Ann McGregor (Janice), Julia E.L. Wood (Susan), Phillip Agresta (Crew Member), Kevin Beltz (Crew Member), Billy Brooks (Crew Member), Dan Burks (Crew Member), Melodi Hallenbeck (Crew Member), Marianne Heath (Crew Member), Matthew Horn (Crew Member), Shannon Jones (Crew Member), Alexander Koehne (Crew Member), Ilana Marks (Crew Member), Ken Koyasu Park (Crew Member), Jack Plotnick (Crew Member), Rachel Ward (Crew Member), Garrett Watts (Crew Member)
Imbued with ancient knowledge of the martial arts, Kung Fury is the best beat cop on the streets, but refuses to take on a new partner because of the grisly fate that met his last partner. But when Adolf Hitler travels to 1985 to claim Kung Fury’s power for himself, hoping to become the Kung Fuhrer in the process, Kung Fury decides to return the favor. With the help of the world’s greatest hacker, Kung Fury travels back in time to stop Hitler from coming to the future. But even the best beat cop on the streets will have to meet a few powerful friends – and his maker – before he can take on the leader of the Third Reich.
(HOFF 9000), Klas Trulsson (Police Officer), Mikael Liljeholm (Police Officer), Victor Lindgren (Police Officer), Mattias Andersson (Police Officer), Martin Gardenalm (Police Officer), David Sundqvist (Police Officer), Mattias Colin (Police Officer), Niklas Bjuhr (Police Officer), Hannes Sigrell (Police Officer), Marc Stromberg (Street Thug), Sebastian Sahin (Street Thug), Robin Arvidsson (Street Thug), Tobias Drews (Nazi Experimenter), Bepper Starbrink (Nazi Experimenter), Mats Mossing (Nazi Experimenter), Anette Bergstrom (Nazi Experimenter), Julian Maroda (Boombox Dude), Jason Blalock (Arcade Dude), Hjalmar Ekstrom (Arcade Dude), Joel Dunkels (Guy with Telephone), Sandra Nendos (Boombox Girl), Emilia Bystrom (Don’t Look Back At Explosions Boombox Walker)
Suburban pre-teens Sam Brenner, Ludlow and Cooper cross paths in 1982 at an arcade video game tournament. Sam’s natural knack for detecting the games’ movement patterns makes him a hot contender for the top spot, but in the finals, he loses to Eddie, a rude, crude kid who has bestowed upon himself the nickname “Fireblaster.”
(Corporal Hill), Jane Krakowski (First Lady Jane Cooper), Dan Aykroyd (1982 Championship MC), Affion Crockett (Sergeant Dylan Cohan), Lainie Kazan (Mickey Lamonsoff), Ashley Benson (Lady Lisa), Denis Akiyama (Professor Iwatani), Tom McCarthy (Michael the Robot), Tim Herlihy (Defense Secretary), Jackie Sandler (President’s Assistant), Jared Sandler (White House Junior Aide), William S. Taylor (Navy Secretary), Rose Rollins (White House Press Secretary), Tucker Smallwood (CIA Chief), Serena Williams (herself), Martha Stewart (herself), Allen Covert (Abusive Citizen), Bill Lake (NY Police Commissioner), Mark Whelan (Colonel Devereux), Dan Patrick (White House Reporter #1), Robert Smigel (White House Reporter #2), Steve Koren (White House Reporter #3), Sadie Sandler (Lemonadie Sadie), Sunny Sandler (Sweet Scout Girl), Hannah Covert (Arcader Choir Girl), Abigail Covert (Classroom Scout Girl #1), Sienna James (Classroom Scout Girl #2), Shea James (Classroom Scout Girl #3), Chris Titone (Soccer Player), Jonathan Loughran (White House Gate Guard), Toru Iwatani (Electric Dream Factory Repairman), Anthony Ippolito (13-year-old Brenner), Jared Riley (13-year-old Cooper), Andrew Bambridge (13-year-old Eddie), Jacob Shinder (8-year-old Ludlow), Jack Fulton (Little Boy on London Street), Kevin Grady (Samurai Gamer), Bridget Graham (Cyber Chick #1), Jocelyn Hudon (Cyber Chick #2), Margaret Killingbeck (Old Woman in London Apartment), Ron Mustafa (Indian Teenage Boy), Meher Pavri (Indian Teenage Girl), Annika Pergament (News Reporter), Lamont James (SEAL #1), James Preston Rogers (SEAL #2), Bola Olubowale (SEAL #3), Rob Archer (SEAL #4), Mark Sparks (Fighter Pilot), Steve Wiebe (DARPA Scientist), Sara Haines (TV News Anchor), Derwin Phillips (Secret Service Man #1), Michael Boisvert (Secret Service Man #2), Colleen Reynolds (Abusive Citizen #1), Jimi Shlag (Abusive Citizen #2), Emily Jenkins (Abusive Citizen #3), Sistah Lois (Sergeant Cohan’s Mother), Andrew McMichael (Arcade Employee), Gary Douglas (DC Valet), Eric Trask (Warden), Susie McLean (Press Person), Daryl Hall (himself), John Oates (himself), Matt Frewer (Max Headroom)
Ares III, the third manned mission to Mars, is cut short by the approach of a severe Martian dust storm whose winds pose a serious risk of toppling their escape vehicle. The crew is ordered inside, but flying debris lowers visibility to zero, and strikes the crew’s botanist, astronaut Mark Watney. Believing Watney is dead, Commander Lewis and her crew blast off from Mars, leaving Watney behind. But Watney isn’t dead: impaled by debris, which also damaged his spacesuit, he makes it back to the crew’s abandoned habitat dome and performs an emergency surgery on himself. He then turns his attention to survival: the Ares IV mission isn’t scheduled to arrive for another four years, so he has to be able to eat, breathe, drink, and stay safe until then. His skills are uniquely suited to growing food, but no one has ever grown crops on Mars. In the meantime, it’s weeks before NASA realizes Watney is still alive, and months before they alert the returning Ares III crew to this news…but it will still be years before Watney can be rescued, if he can stay alive on Mars that long.
Cast: Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Melissa Lewis), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose), Jeff Daniels (Teddy Sanders), Michael Pena (Rick Martinez), Sean Bean (Mitch Henderson), Kate Mara (Beth Johanssen), Sebastian Stan (Chris Beck), Aksel Hennie (Alex Vogel), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Benedict Wong (Bruce Ng), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Donald Glover (Rich Purnell), Nick Mohammed (Tim Grimes), Chen Shu (Zhu Tao), Eddy Ko (Guo Ming), Enzo Cilenti (Mike Watkins), Jonathan Aris (Brendan Hatch), Gruffudd Glyn (Jack), Naomi Scott (Ryoko), Geoffrey Thomas (U.S. President), Yang Haiwen (Chinese Flight Director), Narantsogt Tsogtsaikhan (Wen Jiang), Brian Caspe (Timer Controller), Matt Devere (Satcon), Mike Kelly (Launcher Interface), Szonja Oroszlan (Launch Control), Greg de Cuir Jr. (Capcom), Mark O’Neal (Guidance), Peter Linka (Telemetry), Declan Hannigan (Comms), Peter Schueller (NASA Break Room Worker), Waleska Latorre (Vincent’s Secretary), Frederik Pleitgen (CNN Reporter), Nikolett Barabas (Reporter 1), Karen Gagnon (Reporter 2), Lili Bordan (Reporter 3), Charlie Gardner (Robert Lewis), Nora Horich (Vogel’s Wife), Kamilla Fatyol (Marissa Martinez), Yang Liu (Chinese Translator), Xue Xuxing (Ming’s Secretary), Richard Rifkin (JPL Store Man), Nicholas Wittman (JPL White Room Worker), Balazs Medveczky (JPL White Room Worker), Ben O’Brien (JPL Pathfinder Team), Scott Alexander Young (JPL Pathfinder Team), Jason Ryan (JPL Pathfinder Team), James Dougherty (JPL Pathfinder Team)
Notes: The